The Change Gym is an Australian business based on the Gold Coast, Queensland, that has been operating around Australia and internationally since 2010.
We are a training and leadership development company specialising in change readiness. We help leaders build the change readiness of their teams and organisations by focusing on tried-and-tested scientific methods and proven systems.
The goal is to help organisations and the people who work in them become safer, more successful, and more adaptable to changes the future will bring.
Our scientific and scalable systems are simple to use and have much to offer mid to large size organisations.
Innovations often come from gaps waiting to be filled. That is how it happened with us.
In the early 2000s, Steve Barlow was contracted to deliver anger management training to maximum-security prisoners. The NSW government apparently needed such training and paid good money for it.
But a need does not imply readiness.
Just because prisoners need to control their anger doesn’t mean they are ready to do so. A gap existed between what was needed and what people were ready for.
This gap appears in many organisations around Australia and the world. There is a need to do something important, but there is less readiness to make it happen.
You can force or cajole people to engage, but they do so half-heartedly, which can create ill will and potentially damage the culture. A much safer approach is to build people’s readiness to engage, succeed, and change.
Steve Barlow eventually completed his PhD on change readiness, for which he won the 2010 Outstanding Thesis Award. He then taught it to postgrads undertaking leadership studies at the University of Tasmania.
We have taken these ideas and created courses that are available to leaders (and their teams) wherever there is a gap between need and readiness.
If you wish your people were more ready to engage and persist when changes get hard, we have a system for building their readiness, and it’s easy to do.
Our team leader is Steve Barlow, BA, MEd, PhD, Grad Dip Ed, Grad Cert Ed, Cert IV TAE, FIML. Steve has worked in the education sector for most of his working life. He has held leadership roles and taught in schools, vocational education institutes, prisons, universities, businesses, and community settings. Steve also ran a few cruise boat businesses in Sydney, including a 250-seat cruising restaurant. He now runs The Change Gym.
Steve also has a team of people he works with who support him.
What my team and I appreciated most was the fresh approach to change that Steve takes. The Change Gym transcends details. It supports the attitudes and commitment necessary for success in the process of change – small or large.
Rosalie Martin, Speech Pathology Tasmania
I hope that many more people will hear your message and realise its worth. I know it's changed my life - and is echoing through much of what I do, and for that I'm ever grateful to you.
Marienne Mills, Senior Change Manager, Melbourne
Dr Barlow has done an a amazing job developing a deep and potent coaching and educational system. His academic research surrounding Change Fitness is excellent and its practical applications work in literally any context that involves change. It is a solid foundation for anyone undergoing change. I have personally had my life transformed through the Personal Change Fitness Program. Dr Barlow is able to see both the scope of a situation and the details necessary to create successful change in that moment. He is an integrative thinker, a synthesiser and a professional with the rare combination of being a successful scientist, communicator, and practitioner. I recommend his work for coaches and business managers looking to institute change processes based on solid research evidence with truly practical, lasting results.
Stuart McDonald, Exercise Physiologist, Melbourne
It has been a privilege being a part of Dr. Steve's program- organisational change readiness. This program is a game changer for me as an Agile Coach. It has highlighted the importance for me to fully understand the deep organisational change language as well as the difference between managing change and change management. This program authentically highlights all these on a whole new level. My overall awareness has grown on how to approach change processes and been subsequently enhanced. I have received incredible value throughout and would recommend it to anybody leading people in, with or through change. I am excited to continue with the next phase of personal development and grow my capabilities with the personal change fitness program.
Olivia Kyomugisha, Agile Coach, Melbourne
I'd been working as a leadership coach for 8 years already when I discovered The Change Gym and the deeply important work Dr. Steve has done in the area of developing a program to assist coaching clients with building psychological capacity for change. Who knows what changes will take place in the next 40 years? We can anticipate that that world will look very different, but the good news is that we can be ready for anything, if we develop our change fitness. I'm very excited about his products that serve my own coaching over the next decades.
Adam G Fleming, Coach, Indiana
Steve's approach to change management readiness is definitely an important aspect for all aspects of business - change is always happening so, it is best to be ready for it. I would recommend Steve without hesitation to any and all change management professionals
Earle Steel, Sales, London
Steve's Change fitness program has helped me enormously to understand the drivers of change and consequently build activities that will help people stick to the program (and create a real impact in their lives). Working with Dr. Steve has been a truly pleasant and inspiring experience.
Eugenia Gargallo, Human Centered Design, Spain
Dr Steve Barlow has developed extensive expertise to help coaches with the psychology of change fitness. Steve teaches coaches how to identify and measure the psychological capacity for change. And God knows change is a much-desired capacity at all levels in the workplace. It is rarely applied throughout the employment structures of organisations, and coaching managers to cope with its tools is more helpful than most HR people seem to recognize theses days.
Marcel Tardif, Coach, Canada